Page 73 of Toxic Temptation (Krayev Bratva #1)

VESPER

A FEW DAYS LATER

“We should have said something!” I slap my palm against the kitchen counter hard enough to rattle the coffee mugs. “Objected, or fought it, or, or—something.”

Kovan leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me slowly lose my mind. “Getting worked up isn’t going to bring Luka home faster.”

“It’s been four hours.” I start pacing again, resuming today’s arts-and-crafts project of wearing the deepest possible groove in the hardwood between the island and the sink. “Four hours, Kovan! What could they possibly be doing with him for so long?”

“Maybe they took him to a park. Or to lunch. Or maybe they’re fattening him up so they can turn him into a fucking lampshade.”

“That’s not funny,” I snap.

Kovan sighs. He’s been defusing my anger for a long time, ever since Yana and Ihor showed up to pick up Luka for their court-mandated visitation this morning, so it’s only fair that he’s getting irritated.

“It’s his birthday and she’s his mother and Ihor is his—well, whatever the fuck he is, the courts say they have the right. ”

I whip around to face him. “Don’t you dare defend them.”

“I’m not defending anyone.” His voice stays maddeningly level. “I’m trying to keep you from having a complete breakdown in my kitchen.”

“Well, maybe I want to have a breakdown,” I retort. “Maybe I’m entitled to lose my shit when our kid is spending his birthday with people who treat him like a chess piece.”

Our kid.

Shit. I didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out, natural as breathing.

Kovan’s expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes. I beat him to the punch, though, because nothing hurts quite as good as hurting yourself, right? It’s better that I do it to myself. Save him the trouble.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m forgetting my place, aren’t I? That’s what you’re thinking? I know you are; I can see it in your face. He’s your nephew. I’m just the fake girlfriend playing dress-up and getting way, way ahead of herself.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Isn’t it, though?” I stop pacing and face him fully. “Because that’s what this feels like right now. Like I care more about what happens to him than you do.”

Kovan pushes off the doorframe, his jaw tightening. “You think I don’t care?”

“I think you’re standing there calm as could be, while Luka is with two people who’ve spent months making his life hell.”

“You think being calm means I don’t care?” he growls. “You think I’m not imagining every possible way they could be hurting him right now? Every cruel word Yana might be whispering in his ear?”

I open my mouth to clap back, but he keeps talking.

“You think I’m not fighting the urge to drive to their house and drag him out of there myself?

” He takes a step closer. “I’ve been handling this situation for months, Vesper.

Long before you showed up. So don’t you dare stand there and lecture me about caring.

You don’t know the first fucking thing about just how much I care. ”

The anger goes out of me all at once. I sink onto one of the bar stools, suddenly exhausted. “I’m sorry. I just—I hate this. I hate that we had to let them take him today.”

“I hate it just as much as you do.” Kovan moves to the coffee maker and pours me a cup without asking. “The court order was specific. Yana requested a birthday visitation weeks ago, and the judge approved it.”

“It’s a fucking scheme.”

“Of course it is.” He slides the mug across the counter to me. “She’s playing the devoted mother card for the custody evaluation. But that also means she won’t do anything to actually hurt him today.”

I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic, trying to absorb some of its heat to ground me. “How can you be sure?”

“Because Yana is many things, but she’s not stupid. She knows Eliza Murphy will ask Luka about today. She’ll make sure he has nothing bad to report.”

The logic makes sense, but it doesn’t ease the knot in my chest. “He didn’t even want to go. Did you see his face when Pavel picked him up this morning?”

“I saw.” Kovan is solemn. “But sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to do. He understands that.”

“He’s eight years old. He shouldn’t have to understand that.”

“No, he shouldn’t. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt.”

I take a sip of coffee and let it sit on my tongue.

The burn, the bitterness—it’s good. It anchors me to the present.

“I keep thinking about all the birthdays he’s already suffered through.

All the times she wasn’t there when he needed her.

And now, she gets to act like mother of the year for one stupid day and we’re supposed to be okay with it. ”

Kovan rounds the island and settles on the stool beside me. Close enough that I can smell his cologne, feel the warmth radiating from his body.

“She can play whatever role she wants today,” he says. “It doesn’t change the fact that when he needs comfort, he comes to us. When he has nightmares, he calls for you. When he’s scared, he looks for me.”

Us. Not ‘me and you separately,’ but us . Like we’re a unit. A team.

Maybe even a family.

“I never thought I’d feel this way about a kid,” I admit. “I mean, I love my patients, but this is different. This is…”

“Terrifying,” Kovan finishes.

“Yeah.” I look at him sideways. “Is it weird that I’m more nervous about this custody hearing than I’ve ever been about any surgery?”

“Not weird at all.” He reaches over and toys with a loose strand of my hair. “It means you care. It means this isn’t just a job to you anymore.”

“It stopped being ‘just a job’ weeks ago.”

We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Outside, the afternoon sun pours through the kitchen windows, casting long shadows across the floor. Soon, Luka will be home and the house will fill with his voice again.

But right now, the silence aches.

“What do you want, Vesper?” Kovan’s question comes out of nowhere. “I mean, what do you really want? Not for the custody case or the hospital situation. For yourself.”

“I… I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.” He pivots on his stool to face me fully. “You’ve spent your whole adult life focused on work. On saving other people. But what do you want for your own life?”

I stare down at my coffee, watching the surface ripple as my hands shake. “I used to think I had it all figured out. Work until I couldn’t anymore. Dedicate my life to medicine. Never get too attached to anything or anyone because attachment means vulnerability.”

“And now?”

“Now… this.” I wave one hand around to encompass the room we’re in. “Now, I’m sitting in a strange kitchen, worried sick about a kid who isn’t even mine, falling for a man who’s almost certainly going to break my heart.” I laugh miserably. “So much for having it all figured out.”

Kovan reaches over and covers my hand with his. “Who says I’m going to break your heart?”

“Come on.” I pull my hand away and stand up.

I need distance. “You’re Kovan Krayev. You don’t do relationships.

You don’t do feelings. And you can promise me the moon—you have—but I can’t help believing that, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, I’m just the convenient fake girlfriend who’s gotten a little too invested in the role. ”

“Is that what you think this is?”

There’s something in his voice that makes me turn around. He’s still sitting at the counter, but his posture has changed. Tense. Alert.

“Isn’t it?” I set down my coffee and cross my arms defensively. “When this custody thing is over, when you get Luka permanently, what happens to me? Do I just fade back into my old life like none of this ever happened?”

He stands slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Depends. Is that what you want?”

“I’d love to know what you want,” I say, sounding a little more desperate than I would’ve liked. “Because I can’t keep doing this if it’s just going to end with me watching you both walk away.”

Kovan closes the distance between us in one long stride. When he reaches me, though, he doesn’t touch me—just stands close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

“You think I don’t wonder how this ends?” he rasps. “You think I haven’t thought about what happens when the court case is over and there’s no official reason for you to stay?”

“Have you? Then tell me. How does it end?”

“That’s just it: I don’t know.” He sighs and rubs at the back of his neck. “I’ve never wanted anything permanent before. Never wanted to plan a future with anyone. But you—” He stops, jaw clenching like he’s physically holding words back.

“But me what?”

“But you make me want things I didn’t know I could have. Things I didn’t think I deserved.”

My breath catches. “Kovan?—”

The sound of a car in the driveway cuts me off. We both freeze, then rush to the front window.

Pavel’s Audi comes to a stop outside. Through the windshield, I can see Luka’s small form huddled in the backseat.

But he’s not getting out.

“Something’s wrong,” I say immediately.

Kovan is already heading for the door. “Pavel?”

His brother appears from around the front of the car, expression somber. “He won’t get out. I tried talking to him, but he just stares out the window.”

My heart sinks. Whatever happened today, it wasn’t good.

“Let me try,” I start to tell Kovan, but he’s way ahead of me, halfway to the car. I follow in his footsteps, then stop a few feet shy.

“Luka?” He crouches beside the open window. “You okay, malysh ?”

No response. I can see Luka from here—shoulders hunched, hands clenched in his lap, that spaced-out face he wears when he’s trying not to cry.

Kovan looks back over his shoulder at me for a long moment, then jerks his head to summon me. “You try.”

He retreats to give me room. I approach the car slowly, like Luka is a wounded animal that might bolt if I spook him. When I reach the window, I don’t immediately speak. Just settle against the cracked-open car door and wait.

After a few minutes, he glances at me sideways. “Are you gonna make me come inside?”

“Nope. I’m perfectly happy staying right here until you’re ready.”

“What if I’m never ready?”

“Then I guess we’ll both be out here for a really long time. Hope you don’t mind my company.”

For the first time all day, the corner of his mouth twitches upward. Not quite a smile, but close.

“Can I ask what happened, or do you want to keep it private?”

He considers this seriously before answering. “She had presents.”

“That’s nice.”

“They were wrong.” His voice is small. “Like, toys for little kids. And she got me a baseball glove, but I don’t even like baseball. She didn’t know that.”

My heart breaks a little more with every word. “Did you tell her?”

“No. I pretended to like everything because she got mad when I didn’t smile for pictures.” He finally looks at me directly. “There were a lot of pictures.”

Of course there were. Documentation for the court case.

“She made me eat cake even though I didn’t want any. And she said we had to get a picture of me blowing out the candles.” His hands twist in his lap. “It tasted weird.”

“What kind was it?”

“I don’t know. It had cherries. I hate cherries.”

Another thing his own mother doesn’t know about him.

“Sounds like a pretty rough birthday,” I say carefully.

He nods. “The worst part was when she kept asking me questions about you and Uncle Kovan. Like, if you fight or if he’s mean to me or if you guys are happy together.” He looks out the opposite window. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“You could have told her the truth.”

“What’s the truth?”

I’m quiet for a long moment, thinking. What is the truth?

That Kovan and I started as strangers united in a stupid, crazy scheme?

That somewhere along the way, it became real, at least for me?

That I love this kid and his uncle more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life, but I’m terrified it’s all going to disappear?

“The truth is that we care about you,” I say finally. “Both of us. More than anything.”

“Even though I’m not really your kid?”

That makes me want to tear up. “Luka, look at me.”

He turns reluctantly.

“Biology doesn’t make a family. Love does. And I love you more than I could ever love any kid who happened to share my DNA.”

His eyes fill with tears he’s been holding back all day. “Really?”

“Really really.” I reach through the window and squeeze his shoulder. “Now, what do you say we go inside and salvage what’s left of your birthday? I may have arranged a little surprise.”

His eyebrows lift slightly. “What kind of surprise?”

“The kind where you have to trust me and not ask questions.”

For the first time since he came home, Luka actually smiles. “Okay. But if it’s terrible, we’re coming right back to the car. And it better not have cherries.”

I hold out a hand for him to shake. “You’ve got a deal, my friend.”